Today is February 1, 2023 and I’m going to start a string of post on YouTubing. Where does one start? Hard to go wrong with YouTuber and filmmaker Casey Neistat. Last May I took his online class on YouTube and throughly enjoyed it. I produced two videos in a few weeks. (I haven’t posted them yet, but aiming for a March launch.) There are a lot of parallels to movies, screenwriting, and storytelling in general so don’t touch that dial.
Here’s the essence of Casey’s success in just a single word: Interestingness. Here’s the man himself using the word in a sentence in his course:
”Seek out interestingness.”
—Casey Neistat
You’ve probably heard it said that “Ideas are king,” but Neistat thinks ideas are overrated—but they at least push you off the cliff. He’s all about execution. And the focus of his execution is interestingness. Why does he ride his boosted board on busy NYC streets in so many of his videos? Interestingness. Why does he jump cut mid-sentence? Interestingness. What made one of his YouTube videos amass 78 million views? You know.
Scott W. Smith is the author of Screenwriting with Brass Knuckles
Screenwriting from Iowa 